William Benson knows what it's like to be accused of something you didn't do - the fear, the vulnerability and the nightmare of watching your life unravel. Now he speaks on behalf of those who have no voice, defending anyone who claims to be innocent. This time, it's Karmen Naylor, estranged daughter of a south London crime boss, fighting a murder charge and desperate to be believed. But Benson becomes trapped into a grudge match between two rival clans, endangering himself and those he loves.
Tess de Vere is by Benson's side but she's keeping something from him. A stranger on the trail of a secret death squad operating in Northern Ireland during the Troubles brings a terrible secret into the heart of her own life. And he won't go away.
Can Tess and Will find their way through all the secrets and the lies? Should justice always be served - and if so, at what cost?
Praise for the Benson and de Vere series 'Assured storytelling and highly intriguing moral complexity. I tore through it' Chris Brookmyre
'The courtroom scenes are brilliant, and Benson really comes alive under pressure. Stubborn, fitful and contradictory, he's a highly individualised creation' Spectator
'Punchy dialogue and devious plotlines . . . compelling' The Times
Release date:
February 2, 2023
Publisher:
Little, Brown Book Group
Print pages:
320
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‘Archie, if I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a dozen times: you can’t call me Rizla any more. That’s my prison name. I left the can ten years ago. So did you.’
‘Sorry, when I get worried, it slips out. But you’ve got to—’
‘There’s nothing to worry about.’
‘These crime families live by different rules. Violence is all they know.’
‘I’ve got you to look after me, Arch. Remember that scooby with a Millwall brick? He—’
‘You have to return this case.’
After a few months inside, Benson had started work on a handbook for newcomers detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure. Knowing he faced an eleven-year tariff, it had been something to do, apart from the puzzles and the smoking; and the law degree.
scooby (n) offens. someone who’s too friendly with the screws (see screw).
Millwall brick (n) Antiq. a newspaper (orig. tabloid) tightly rolled and folded lengthwise for use as a weapon (hist. devised by football hooligans wondering what else to do with it).
The handbook – Benson’s Guide to the Underworld – had worked its way from D Wing of HMP Kensal Green to every penitentiary in the UK. Twenty years later, it was still in circulation. A copy of the latest revised edition had arrived last week from HMP Denton Fields, rousing memories of sound and sensation. Benson had been beaten senseless there. By a screw with no sense of humour.
screw (n) 1 Zool. a species of lizard having a long tongue and the power of changing its personality. 2 someone you can never trust. 3 a prison guard.
‘There are two gangs,’ said Archie. ‘One of ’em takes a whack at the other. In the middle is Karmen Naylor. Our client. She says she’s been framed. Me? I don’t give a hoot. Do you want to know why?’
‘Why, Archie?’
‘Because she’s still dangerous.’
He brought his heavy frame forward, as if peering into the crimson mist from Denton Fields.
‘Anyone connected with her is dangerous. Representing her is dangerous. You need to bail out.’
Six years into his sentence, Benson had taken on an editorial assistant – a one-eyed bitty from Wigan called Doyle, who’d just earned a nine-month tariff for arson. When asked for his first name, Doyle had turned around, dropped his trousers and tugged off his underpants.
bitty (n) 1 a drug addict. 2 a volatile person.
Benson had stared at the large tattooed backside. On each buttock there’d been a large B. ‘Fill in the blank,’ Doyle had said, pleased with himself. Hardly original. But it showed playfulness. Qualities that Bob would need in plenty, because fourteen years later he was still slopping out.
‘I’ve something important to say,’ said Archie. ‘Tess de Vere’s getting married.’
Benson lurched out of the fog.
‘Married? Who the hell to?’
‘I’m winding you up. Now concentrate. Do you need a burn, or what?’
burn (n) 1 a lethal herb which, when lit and inhaled, shortens the life of a prisoner while killing time to reduce a sentence. 2 an approved toxin capable of lowering the prison population and government expenditure thereon without the need for spending cuts. 3 tobacco. 4 a cigarette.
‘No, Arch, I’m fine.’
‘Do I now have your attention?’
‘You do.’
‘Let’s talk Tess, then. For two years she sends you no work. Nowt. And then, out of the blue, you get a peach. A high-profile, headline-grabbing, top-drawer earner. Agreed?’
‘Agreed.’
It had been a real peach, too. Multiple law-enforcement agencies, following a tip-off, had intercepted a Ford transit van on the M1 driven by a known drug dealer, Steven Bucklow. The police – all tooled up and filmed from a helicopter for Sky News – had found three million smackers in three suitcases. Investigators believed the money was being transported south as part of a money-laundering operation. But that remained surmise because Bucklow, like a good villain, hadn’t said a word to his captors. Except to say he’d wanted Benson and de Vere. Unfortunately, he’d soon changed his mind.
‘Why do you think Bucklow sacked you?’
‘We both know, Archie.’
‘We do. It’s called terror.’
A month or so after taking on R-v-Bucklow, Tess had been instructed to defend the Hither Green Butcher, otherwise known as Karmen Naylor, the estranged daughter of Tony Naylor, a south London crime boss, who was accused of slaying her father’s right-hand man. She, like Bucklow, had insisted on having Benson as her brief in court.
‘Look at the facts, Rizla. Bucklow is as happy as Larry until he finds out you’re also acting for a Naylor. The mention of the name was all it took. He crapped himself. This is a hardcore crook sending you a hardcore message. You don’t want to get anywhere near the Naylors. You might end up in a ditch.’
‘There aren’t many ditches in London, Arch. I think you mean the foundations of a flyover.’
The ‘warning’ sent by Bucklow had been confirmed by the Tuesday Club, a group of ex-cons who carried out research for Benson. They’d delivered their report on the victim, Billy Hudson. Anyone who’d crossed him had either been hospitalised or was dead. Then came the disclosure of a police intelligence statement about the Naylor Family Crime Group. After reading it Archie had twiddled his signet ring and suggested breakfast at the Chip-net, a café behind Kentish Town railway station, founded by an ex-con to employ ex-cons.
Chip-net (n) the safety net strung between landings to prevent suicide by jumping. No jokes about that one.
‘Rizla, you’ve got your last conference with her this morning. Pull out … I don’t want you to get hurt.’
‘No one’s going to get hurt, Archie.’
‘Wrong. The Naylors expect you to win, and if you don’t, they’ll cut your throat and dump you God knows where. And then there’s the opposition. The Ronsons. They want you to lose. And if you don’t … Rizla, they set dogs onto people. Five-stone pit bulls. Not chihuahuas. Win or lose’ – Archie pointed out of the window, presumably towards a flyover – ‘there’ll be consequences. You have to drop this case.’
For the greater part of his sixty-seven years, Archie had sustained himself on the honey of all-day breakfasts. And meat pies. And cream cakes. And various real ales. And pork scratchings. And nuts. Somehow or other he bulged out of his baggy jumper and vast corduroy trousers, communicating good health. In HMP Lindley, where he’d been two’d up with Benson, no one had crossed Archie, with or without a Millwall brick.
Two-up (v) to share a cell with someone, hence, two’d up usu. a form of salvation or damnation.
With judicial exactness, Benson pushed his plate forward.
‘I’ve listened, Mr Congreve. Here’s what I think. First, Karmen Naylor is innocent. Second, the case against her is shameful. Those are reasons enough to take the case. In fact, they don’t apply because, third, and most important of all, it doesn’t matter what I think. It doesn’t matter that the Naylors are sharpening knives or the Ronsons sharpening teeth. We defend anyone who claims to be innocent. It’s called the cab-rank rule. We take whoever’s standing on the kerb.’
‘Well, you’re going to pay for this.’
‘No, Archie, you are. Breakfast was your idea. Application dismissed.’
Benson strode along Camden Road, pushed forward by the memory of clanging iron, the scrape of a lock turning, a flash of meaningless graffiti beside a filthy toilet, the sickening smell of blood, and its taste, all of it sediment raised from the seabed by the landing of that damned guidebook on his desk. By the time he turned into Blackstock Road, his emotions had settled. And yet his thoughts didn’t turn to Karmen Naylor and the last pre-trial conference. His mind was on Tess. He’d not forgotten a single freckle.
The wind funnelled down a side street off Blackstock Road, chasing cigarette butts stained red with lipstick and plastic wrappers from cheap sweets. A scrunched paper cup spun and bounced off the pavement, striking Tess on the ankle. She watched it skip off, and then turned her attention to the dark blue figure scurrying close to the wall, hooded, his hands in his duffel coat pockets. She knew that walk. As expected, he’d come without the trial brief or a notebook. Every last case detail would be in his memory, from dates of birth to time of death. Whatever he was told would be retained, word for word. As he approached her, he jerked his head towards the cliff of pockmarked brick.
‘I hate these places.’
Towering beside them was HMP Drayton Park. It had been built in the nineteenth century to hold women only, providing, too often, their next residence after the poorhouse. It now held Karmen Naylor on remand. It was where she’d stay if the jury found her guilty.
‘They give me the jitters.’
He hadn’t even stopped. Going straight towards a battered iron door, he poked a button in the wall. A savage buzzer screamed back, as if the Luftwaffe had been spotted over Islington. Tess gawped at him from behind. There’d been no greeting. No glance of reproof. Just a sudden blast of familiarity.
‘Let’s try and change Karmen’s mind,’ he said. ‘We need her in the witness box.’
* * *
Benson sat in the interview room, massaging his hands as if they were cold. He breathed deeply and he stared at the worn linoleum. He was just this side of outright sweating. And then, when the guard clanged open the door – Tess was in an agony of expectation, knowing yet doubting – he stood up, cool and calm, holding out his hand:
‘Karmen, how are you?’
Tess breathed out. In a prison visit, there was always a fear that Benson would fall to pieces in front of a trembling client, and Tess would have to sweep him up off the floor, saying, with a wink, don’t worry, he’ll be fine in court. Before she could suppress another reaction, it was there, warm in her stomach: she’d missed this. She’d missed him.
‘Same as last time, Mr Benson,’ said Karmen huskily.
‘Hell?’
‘Absolute hell. You can’t imagine what it’s like.’
‘No,’ said Benson wistfully. ‘I can’t.’
This, then, was the Hither Green Butcher: a petite waitress swamped in a maroon tracksuit. Black hair, parted in the middle, fell in natural curls to her shoulders. High cheekbones underlined darting eyes, reddened by months of sleeplessness. Tight lips suggested someone who’d learned to keep quiet. But not with everyone. With Benson she was an open book. That’s what Georgina, her assistant, had said.
‘I used to think hell was all about fire and pain,’ she said. ‘You know: deserved, endless agony. But it’s not. It’s much simpler. It’s about waiting and staring at a wall. I can’t take it much longer.’
‘Well, you have to, because it’s going to get an awful lot worse.’
‘How?’
‘When the trial begins, you’ll come back here and realise you might not be leaving. That wall you’ve been staring at starts closing in. You’ll find it difficult to breathe and you’ll be two’d up with a junkie who’s freaking out and the slop in the toilet will—’
‘I want to go home, Mr Benson.’
‘And I want to take you there. But you have to help me.’
‘I’m sorry, Mr Benson, I won’t let them question me.’
This had been Karmen’s unfailing refrain from the day Tess had first met her. She was terrified the prosecution would trip her up, even though she had nothing to hide. According to Georgina, Benson hadn’t tried to dissuade her. Now, though, with the trial at hand, it was time to spell out the implications of silence.
‘You need to give evidence, Karmen,’ said Benson. ‘Because—’
‘I know, I know, the judge will comment on it. The prosecution will comment on it. They’ll say I could have explained myself, but I’ve said all I’ve got to say. It’s in the interviews, and—’
‘Karmen. Hold it there.’
Benson waited, as if to let water come off the boil. Then he said:
‘I’m urging you to speak because you know something that no one else could even begin to imagine. And the jury needs to hear it. Everyone in court will be aware of who you are and where you’ve come from. They’re going to look at you and think of your father and wonder if you, too, could do the sort of thing that he has done. Fact. If you say nothing, they can’t possibly know what you are really like. But if you speak, we can use any prejudice to our advantage.’
‘Advantage?’
‘Yes, advantage.’
‘How?’
‘Tell them what it’s been like to be Karmen Naylor. What you endured at school, university, the workplace. Your whole life. How you’ve never been able to be yourself. How you’ve been tarred with innuendo and myth and false accusations. How you haven’t got a friend in the world because they’re all terrified of your surname. That you stayed away from home from the moment you went to university, but everyone knew who you were. You started work, but had to keep moving … from Newcastle to Leeds to Manchester because, in the end, someone made the connection: you’re Tony Naylor’s daughter … This is the best way to convince the jury you’re completely different from what they expected. This is the best way to get them on your side.’
The constant rumble of the prison reached them like distant waves tossing iron and humanity onto a beach of scrapped expectations. The shouting was as loud as it was pointless.
‘You can’t sit back and risk being convicted. We can change your life, Karmen, for good, in the last place you’d think possible, the Old Bailey. But you have to step forward and—’
‘I can’t, Mr Benson.’
‘I’ll guide you all the way.’
‘No.’
‘I’m the one who’ll ask the questions. The prosecution will have nothing to contradict your answers. By the time we’re finished—’
‘I said I can’t.’
‘But why?’
‘I’ve never told my father what it’s been like. He thinks I became a waitress because I was working my way up, planning to run my own restaurants … that he’d pay for, and that I would never have accepted. I couldn’t tell him the truth. It would finish him off. That’s why I never changed my name.’
‘Do you want to stay in here?’
‘No.’
‘Then recognise your needs are more important than his feelings.’
‘Not on this issue.’
‘But his feelings are based on a total misunderstanding of your life.’
‘That’s as may be. Anyway, there’s another reason. In fact, it’s the main reason.’
‘What is it?’
‘To do as you ask involves condemning him, for who he is and what he’s done. I’ve never done that; and I never would. Not after all he has done for me … Mr Benson, my father has done a lot of bad things. But with me he tried to do something good. He thinks he succeeded. I’m not going to take that away from him.’
Tess felt a rush of sympathy and identification. Karmen was a woman drowning in her own blood.
‘That’s sentimental crap,’ snapped Benson. ‘It’s what he’s done that’s put you in here. You owe him nothing. You owe yourself everything. Now think again. Clearly.’
Tess tensed, willing Karmen to capitulate, but instead she smiled with appreciation.
‘This is why I wanted you to represent me, Mr Benson. Because you care. Because you speak the truth without hesitation. But you’re going to have to find another way of getting me out of this hellhole. The judge and the prosecutor can say what they like, but I will not deny my father.’
Benson was very still for a moment. And then, as if opening up the brief that wasn’t there, and taking out the pen he didn’t have, for the notebook he hadn’t brought, he said:
‘Okay. Let’s talk about Billy Hudson.’
At the mention of that name, Karmen’s smile vanished. And while Tess didn’t move an inch, she withdrew deep inside herself. There, as if crouched in a hide, she watched, motionless and intent.
‘Imagine we’ve never spoken of him before. Imagine you’re in court, and the jury are listening to the prosecutor give an outline of his life, and how you came to know him.’
‘It makes no difference, Mr Benson. I know very little about him.’
‘You’re born in the same year as Billy. 1988.’
‘I know that much.’
‘Aged eleven, he’s working as a runner for one of your father’s lieutenants, Lewis Derby. Delivering messages, keeping a lookout, following people. Did you know that?’
‘I’ve already told you. No.’
‘Aged twenty – in 2008 – he becomes your father’s personal enforcer, driver and bodyguard. Wherever your father went, Billy went. And wherever Billy went, he went with the authority of your father. Is this news as well?’
‘Yes. Because in 2006 I went to university and never lived at home again.’
‘Aged twenty-two – we’re now in 2010 – Billy takes over the management of Hither Green Tyres Ltd. A family business run by Jack Kilgour, who was forced to sell it to your father for peanuts. It became Hudson’s HQ. It’s where he sat behind a desk and made sure everyone stayed in line. Kilgour still worked there, by the way, with his two sons. For more peanuts. Which was good for your father, because they’re the only ones who knew anything about changing tyres. Is this more news? Not just the peanuts, the—’
‘Absolutely. All of it. I was living in Newcastle, for God’s sake, working at a Thai restaurant. I’d graduated the year before … how would I know anything about Billy’s status? I’ve told you a thousand times: as a kid, I was protected from what was going on. From the age of eighteen, I just wasn’t there.’
‘January 2017. Your father is charged with the murder of Jim “the Kite” Fitzgerald. A cousin of Stuart Ronson, head of the Ronsons. They’re from north of the Thames, with pretensions over the south. Unknown to your father there’s an informer in his ranks. A covert human intelligence source. A CHIS. Codenamed Q. And Q has gone to the police and told them everything. He’s told them the Kite came south and knocked a Naylor girl about. So your father went north, strung up the Kite by his ankles and cut his throat. His body was dumped at sea. Now, before Q can give evidence—’
‘I know, Mr Benson. My father had a stroke and the case was dropped.’
‘In April 2017. And it’s at this point, aged twenty-nine, you leave Manchester and come home.’
‘My father needed help. Remember, my mother had died. There was no one else.’
‘Two months later, that June, you went to the offices of Ruth Mowbray, the family solicitor. She slides some paperwork over the table. You signed it and that made you a director of HGT Ltd.’
‘That’s right.’
‘But you had no knowledge of the tyre-fitting business.’
‘I understood I was replacing my father.’
‘What do you think that means to someone investigating the Naylor family?’
Karmen let the question sink in.
‘Don’t be ridiculous. My brother Ryan runs the show, with his team, not me. The police know that.’
‘But you’re company secretary.’
‘So what?’
‘Company secretaries are responsible for the smooth running of a business. They ensure compliance with the law. And when it comes to the Naylors, compliance takes on a whole new meaning. And that was your job. Billy Hudson was answerable to you. Not Ryan.’
‘On paper.’
‘In fact.’
‘Look, I thought it was legitimate. I thought the Kilgours were employees. My dream was to get Billy to move out and then develop the business. Make it grow. Rival Kwik Fit. I’d gone crazy.’
‘What about any meetings with Ryan and his boys?’
‘Never happened. Not when I was there. If they did, it was a Friday night.’
‘Just like yours?’
‘No … that’s different.’
‘You met Billy regularly. Why?’
‘I didn’t. I spent time with the Kilgours, learning the ropes. Then I helped out in reception. And yes, I’d talk to Billy. I was working up to asking him to leave. That’s why I was there the night he was killed. I asked him to find another base, and he agreed. I thought my dream was coming true.’
‘When did you last see him, prior to that meeting on Friday the eighteenth of May 2018?’
‘The Wednesday before.’
‘That’s the sixteenth.’
‘Yes. I saw him in the morning and asked if I could see him, and he said he was heading to Manchester and would be back on Friday.’
‘Why arrange a meeting at nine in the evening?’
‘He suggested the time, and it suited me because I wanted to get him when there was no one around.’
‘You mean witnesses?’
‘No, no.’
‘Because – conveniently enough – there weren’t any, and – as you say – that’s the night Billy was murdered.’
‘But not by me. I didn’t even go into his office … we met in Mr Kilgour’s, by the entrance. For quarter of an hour. If that.’
‘Why did you leave driving like a maniac?’
‘Because I was excited. Billy had said he’d find other premises.’
‘Not because you were hyper-stressed at having just killed him?’
‘No, I saw him alive, walking back to his office.’
‘But you’re the only person known to have been with him at about the time he was killed.’
‘I’ve been set up. You know it. I know it.’
‘After Billy arrived, he turned off the CCTV system. This was usual practice. To protect the identity of anyone who came for a meeting. But it also meant you could remove his body without being seen.’
‘If I was going to kill Billy and put his body in the boot of my car, I’d have avoided the other CCTV camera on the street, both arriving and leaving, but I didn’t. So what was I doing?’
‘Being smart. Behaving as if you were innocent. Speaking of your car, some of Hudson’s blood was found on the rear bumper.’
‘Someone put it there.’
‘When?’
‘How do I know?’
‘Who?’
‘Someone working for Stuart Ronson. There’s no other possible explanation.’
‘Blood and fibres were found on the jetty at Allhallows Rest. The cottage you own on the Hoo Peninsula. Paid for by your father.’
‘It was his. He put it in my name, that’s all.’
‘It was where you went after leaving Billy on the night he died. More blood and a button were found on a boat. Little Winner. Named after you, and that you own.’
‘Yes, I know, and paid for by my father, but it’s the same arrangement. It’s meaningless, it’s—’
‘A boat you took to sea the day after the killing—’
‘I always sail on a Saturday. To get away from everything.’
‘—to dispose of the body. It doesn’t look good.’
‘I don’t care what it looks like, Mr Benson. I’m innocent. We both know what happened. My father killed a Ronson big cheese who happened to be a relative of the boss. So the boss kills a big cheese of my father’s and framed his relative. It’s tit for tat. I’m in this situation simply because I’m Tony Naylor’s daughter.’
‘That’s our case, Karmen. But to get that argument before the jury, we have to tell them all about the Kite, and your father and Q. And this is the rub: once that information is before the jury, the prosecution can use it, too. And they will. I already know what they’re going to say.’
‘Well I don’t. I can’t imagine how they’d twist my life to fit the picture of someone who’d end up killing Billy Hudson.’
‘How about this: there was more to your leaving the north than compassion. Little Winner finally got sick of doing menial jobs in Newcastle and Leeds and Manchester, so she came home and signed on the dotted line. And after that, she was learning the ropes. From Billy Hudson, the man your father trusted with his life.’
‘Then why would I kill him?’
‘You were stepping up to the plate.’
‘But why? Billy had done nothing wrong … n. . .
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